And is it a bad business for the middle east if military leadership is on the rise again . With me are bronwen maddox, british political commentator, abdel bari atwan, who writes on arab affairs, italian writer and film maker anna lisa piras, and stephanie bakerfrom bloomberg markets. In china, they were calling her auntie may, but back here in the uk, shes more an aunt sally, the target in a long vanished game at whom players threw things in an attempt to knock it down. Her absence from westminster was marked by yet another round of rumours suggesting time is running out for her premiership. There was a toy that used to be advertised with the tag line, weebles wobble but they dont fall down. Mrs may doesnt either. Why not . She is there for a reason, she is one of a few figures, possibly the only one in the cabinet at this point that can bridge both sides of brexit. Until it serves either side to get rid of her, she is there. But she wasnt there this week, she was in china for three days, and it was kind of muted. We had been wondering whether she would use this as a chance to make a big, new britain on the world stage kind of speech, and talk about britain after brexit, doing deals with countries like china and things like that, and she didnt quite do that. She came away with 9 billion of deals and she did give one speech on business but she didnt come out against human rights or chinas behaviour in hong kong, she didnt sign up on the other hand for the road initiative. New network of influenza. As if they dont have that already of influence. She gave them a bit of what they wanted and not other things and somehow it wasnt the great ringing vision of britain after brexit. A bit of a missed opportunity . Definitely. If she wants to reassert her leadership with some kind of big vision of what is going to happen to britain in the world after brexit, this was the perfect occasion, so why did she not do it . I think she feels very uncertain herself about her own future, as does probably the rest of the country. The big question is why she has not fallen yet. I think the answer is because there is no one else on the horizon that seems to offer a stronger leadership. That is quite telling, isnt it, that she is the strongest of the options yet the consequence of how the cabinet is so divided is that she is almost a prisoner of them. Yes. Definitely she is not Strong Enough actually to be a prominent leader of this country, but what is the alternative, what is the morning after, suppose they succeed to chop her, to remove her . I think britain needs stability in this time in particular. Going to china, i think it was a very realistic move. You need to prepare for the after brexit. I know many people criticised her because she did not talk about human rights. You cannot actually go and look for deals with the second strongest economy in the world and then lecture them about human rights or interfere in their internal affairs. I think she was a pragmatist. I think she is trying. Maybe people say she is a dead body or Something Like that, but i think the alternative could be completely obscure and ambiguous. Interesting point about the choice of going to china. We heard a former minister under david cameron, her predecessor, say it was good that she was going to china because too many ministers are saying we will have deals with new zealand and countries like that. Small countries. China is enormous. It was a modestly successful trip. She was seen to be out there. I think the issue overshadowing the trip was this debate about, is britain in a Customs Union or not, or does it have a bespoke Customs Union . Liam fox, the International Trade secretary, said this week to bloomberg that it wouldnt work to have the uk in a Customs Union with the eu because it would restrict britains ability to negotiate trade deals with countries like china. This is the nagging question that faces theresa may, that she has refused to be clear on, about what is the sort of end state and what does britain look like post brexit . It continues to dog her everywhere she goes. The reason why she hasnt been clear is because shes balancing between brexiteers and soft brexit supporting remainers, within her cabinet and her own party. Are there signs that perhaps some of the other European Countries are beginning to recognise the dilemma that she and the British Government face . Perhaps there is a desire that theyre going to soften things a bit . Is any of that going to happen when Michel Barnier arrives in london . I think so, there has been a clear shift, and italy has been one of the main supporters of this kind of softer approach. Countries are starting to realise that brexit will happen. Yes, there was unity, everyone was saying no cherry picking, no cake eating, but now countries like italy should be the first to open the way to say, listen, this is going to happen so why dont we start being more pragmatic and realistic . Because the eu could lose by it as well as britain . Yes, countries like italy with a very strong economic bond with the uk are starting to see what theyre going to lose, so theyre starting to prepare the ground to say, what if we actually will be allowed to have our own bespoke deal with the uk . There are dangers in this because the moment when everyone starts having a bespoke deal with the uk is the moment the eu collapses, and the Single Market cannot allow that. But there is a real sense that there is more pragmatism, more favour for more bespoke deals. I think its right that European Countries are changing their view but i dont think that is the message that Michel Barnier will turn up with on monday, which i think is going to be much more hardline. We will no doubt be returning to this subject. The state of the Union Address brings the separation of powers on which us democracy is based to life in one place. Senators, members of the house of representatives, and the justices of the Supreme Court gather to hear the president of the United States take the temperature of the nation and deliver his manifesto for the 12 months ahead. Donald trump, who in so many other ways is redefining what president ial means, maintained the tradition and stuck to the script. That was tuesday. On friday, it was back to the bear pit of us politics, as President Trump authorised release of information alleging the fbi had misled a judge whilst carrying out surveillance that the fbi had misled a judge whilst carrying out surveillance of his president ial election campaign. What is the state of the presidency right now . Youve just come back from the us . Yes, where you get the full view of american cable news. And particularly in washington, which is now consumed with news of this memo that trump has authorised to be declassified, written by republicans on the house intelligence committee, accusing the fbi and Thejustice Department of misleading a federal judge in their application to spy on carter page, a former Trump Campaign operative. The fbi director and Justice Department officials fought against the release of this memo, saying that the memo cherry picked information and presented a skewed picture of how they went about getting permission to carry out surveillance on carter page. I think the issue here is you now have this unprecedented situation where the white house is basically at war with its own Justice Department and its hand picked fbi director. Trump picked christopher wray, the fbi director, he picked Jeff Sessions and rod rosenstein. And they all came in after the election so they cant be blamed. We havent seen a split like this since the nixon era, watergate, really. And so the democrats are saying this is trying to undermine the fbi and the russian investigation, whether Trumps Campaign colluded with russia or not. The republicans are saying, no, this just shows that the fbi is politicised and cant be trusted. Its remarkable that you have the republican party, the party of law and order, attacking the intelligence agencies and feeding into this conspiracy theory. The memo doesnt show. The fbi cannot respond without revealing sources and methods. It cant say, we didntjust rely on this dossier written by a former british spy, christopher steele, which had been paid for by the democratic party. Because that would reveal sources and methods. We know that the fbi had got intelligence from british and dutch intelligence into russia back injuly 2016 as a result of another Trump Campaign operative, george papadopoulos. And that carter page had been under the fbis watch under the fbis watch for years. And that his trip to russia previously had raised concerns among a number of people. I think it is disheartening. The democrats want to release their own memo in response. When i read this memo, i asked, is that it . It is three and a half pages. I later read that james comey thought the same thing. Its pretty thin stuff. Might it help for the president to change the narrative . To say, there are forces that are out to get us . Allowing him to say toa out to get us . Allowing him to say to a lot of the people, you dont wa nt to to a lot of the people, you dont want to believe all of this stuff . Nothing about this is good for him. Although i agree, there is less in this particular memo than you might think. He needs to get the focus onto the economy, wages, jobs. It is interesting that at first he was quite president ial at the state of the Union Address. We had about 48 hours of that, and then all of this descends. This is the normality for the trump presidency, the constant fighting. The republicans are broadly taking his side on this. And so its not going to split them away from him coming up to the midterm elections, they are not going to try to distance themselves from this very unusual president. And so there is all that. There is nothing about trump and russia that is good for trump. It is midterm elections in the us. Which mverything must be seen through the prism of the party battle. 15 years ago, as the drum beat of war beat louder ahead of the us led invasion of iraq, the then us president and the then british Prime Minister hoped it might be a catalyst for change in the middle east, that their model of democracy was what ordinary people were hungry for. Seven years ago came the arab spring, a wave of protests that dislodged some of the long standing dictators, including those who seemed to still be wearing uniforms under their civilian suits. Are the military men stealthily returning to power, or had they never gone away . The middle east is in a huge mess nowadays. Its people now are really starving. The problem is, when the people seven years ago went into the streets, they were looking for democracy, human rights, equality, fighting corruption. Now, the middle east is completely different. If you look at egypt, which is a major country in the middle east, now it is ruled by a dictator, a military dictator. Until the closing hours of the election, one hour before that, he managed to find an opponent for the elections, in order to compete with making the point that for democracy elections are necessary but not sufficient in themselves. Hes looking for a scarecrow. Not a real candidate the reaction among the people is very muted. You cannot see a very aggressive reaction. Why . Because 40 of the people in the middle east are under the poverty line. Less than 2 per day. So, people are looking for food. Seven years ago we witnessed an arab spring for democracy. Now we are actually on the edge of a hunger spring. People revolting for food. It is true, the entire area, is a laboratory of distraction. Everything seems to be going really badly wrong. There are a number of interlocked and interconnected crises which are going to degenerate in the years to come. That is why it is very very urgent in my view, and it is a subject of a film i have spent some time on for the past two years, to pay more attention to the global strategy of the eu, because what you need to do is stop looking country by country and try to have a proper strategy for the region. What has happened in tunisia has been interesting. There, there has been massive investment in Civic Society and especially in women. People speak of tunisia as the one bright spot in the arab spring. Yes, but its very fragile, and there is not the same kind of strategy for the rest of the region. So we see the multiple collision of sectarian violence. Tunisia was a successful example but what can you do if your neighbour is libya, for example . A failed state and a lot of militias fighting each other. And when you have a million unemployed people, libya used to absorb at least 50 of them, now half of libyans are outside their country looking forjobs. We should have a concerted effort of the west. To do what . To provide a comprehensive strategy, which is what the European Union has proposed. But countries are competing with each other, having diverging economic interests and so you could perpetrate chaos like in libya. It is not as if the region has been without european and american attention for years. It might not thank us for that attention. You have the economic unravelling you have described, with all the consequences of hunger and migration and all these things. And youve got a lot of sectarian conflict, one group against another, which iraq profoundly demonstrated how hard it is to stop the winner taking it all. The economy needs stability. If you have at least five failed states in the middle east, a war in yemen, libya, syria, how can you have proper Economic Growth and find jobs for people . This is the dilemma. And so they need to promote peace before economy or anything else. You need the infrastructure for the economy to be established. If you compare egypt and tunisia, you can compare the western response to both countries. Tunisia has embraced democracy and elections more forcefully. Its struggled much more economically. It has been supported by the imf. But the conditions imposed by the imf on the loans have resulted in austerity, which has resulted in widespread protests and violence. Soi so i think that western response in tunisia should be reassessed. Then you look at the western response is different in egypt. I dont think obama was effective in his strategy but trump is perhaps making it worse, abandoning us policy towards promoting human rights. Sisi has used the war on terror as an excuse for his crackdown. And you have western leaders either remaining mum in the face of his moves, or President Trump calling him a fantastic guy. What about other countries like lebanon and iraq, which are democracies and arguably have a stronger democracy . We have two crucial elections in may, one in iraq and one in lebanon. The backbone of this thing is sectarianism. These societies are divided. And Civil Society is actually deteriorating. For example, a positive note about tunisia, as i am the only man at this panel, i would like to say that the women in tunisia actually played a major role to keep Society United and to keep the civil state. I met the president of tunisia and he told me that, i am here because of women. He got a rough ride a few days ago because of the levels of poverty you were talking about. You were plugged into the Foreign Policy thinking in the early part of the century, with blair and bush. They were convinced that, if people were given option of democracy on the western model, they would jump at it. Is it possible there are parts of the world where people feel more confident in strong leaders, however unattractive they become . It depends what state they are in. If their country is in turmoil, a failed state, no food, maybe they might say that. But i havent come across many places in the world where people wouldnt want democracy if it was going to lead to a better life. You take iraq. This seems to be the mistake that tony blair and george bush made. With a lot of the american Foreign Policy establishment behind them, they thought that bringing democracy in iraq would be fine, it would look Something Like american democracy, and what you got was a winner takes all. You got the shia majority, who had been suppressed under saddam hussein, suddenly finding they are in the majority, theyve won, theyre running the government, and they then clamped down on the sunni minority. And that is one reason, not the only reason, you got isis. What about the model in lebanon where you say, sectarianism is here and it is real, but they force power sharing with all elements represented . If you can, thats great. But it is so hard to get stable power sharing. Look at northern ireland, which doesnt at the moment have a government. That is the ideal. If you cant, i guess you have to say the thrust of the policy in the last few decades is to separate people who cant stand each other. That would be rewriting the map. . Sectarianism is the most dangerous concept in our part of the world. It is how islamic state, isis emerged, because of sectarian iraq. So. I completely agree. We have to give stronger roles to the women. Promote Civil Society. Tunisian success can apply to other places. Thats why the European Union has been very effective in libya. In libya there has been a very positive outcome in investing in local administrations in Civil Society. You are right in saying that we shouldnt find taboo the idea of redrawing borders. You should remember that those borders were drawn very artificially at the end of the second world war. And some of the other countries in the middle east at the end of the first world war. Look at the balkans, they were allowed to basically separate into different groups of people. Local administrations, Civil Society, these are things that need to be invested in much, much more. It is hard from what you were saying that now, whatever lessons that may have taken from the neo con period in washington, theres much apetite in the us to roll up their sleeves and get involved. Trump hasnt even appointed a permanent undersecretary of state for human rights. There is just an acting woman in place there now. His message has been consistently that his main concern is security and not democracy or human rights. What message does that send and how does it encourage leaders to act . Does that encourage leaders to act . You can say its not like hes giving blanket permission in sisi in egypt to caryr out a crackdown, but those messages do count. They realise that, if there is no application for the actions they take, they feel a licence to go ahead. The problem is that american policy is a huge shambles. Trumps speech, he said, we will destabilise iran. We are going to keep our forces in that part of the world, we are going to stick to moving our embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. He is upsetting most of the people. How can you have a stable middle east while the biggest or strongest power on earth has no strong, or human policy, even . Thank you all very much and thank you for being with us. Thats all we have time for this week. Please do join us again next week, same time, same place. A cold and rainy and sleety and even snowy saturday in some spots. In the higher parts of Northern England and scotla nd higher parts of Northern England and scotland we have seen most of the sleet and snow so far. Not too much of it but what we have will slowly peter out into tonight. More of us turning drier. Some holes in the cloud allowing a touch of frost and some i see patches towards eastern areas of england. I think were going to keep an area of cloud in scotland edging a bit further west into the central belt and the grampians, a little bit of like rain and sleet and snow is possible into sunday. Across a large swathe of england and wales, a scattering of these showers and keen north easterly wind, a lot of the showers will be coming as rain that there could be some sleet and hail as well. Moving through the day, we have the wind and the showers coming in. Elsewhere the wind is not too noticeable, and for many of us it will be dry. Out of the wind it will bea will be dry. Out of the wind it will be a fairly pleasant sunday. But that will wind will make it feel like it is closer to freezing across east anglia and southern england, into south wales. Sunday evening and night, the showers continue to feed into south east england and theyre more likely to turn into snow as we get to wards monday morning. May be a risk of disruption in south east england on monday morning. On monday another fine winters day for many. Living into tuesday this weather system living into tuesday this weather syste m fro m living into tuesday this weather system from the atlantic comes in and it will bring some sleet and snow as well, increasingly so as it moves southwards during the day but it will be tending to weaken. But it is another weather system to watch this week. In summary, another cold week ahead, with frosty nights and there will be some snow at times. This is bbc news. The headlines at 5pm the head of the fbi has defended its work we have been saying since 2013 to 2014 we could not sustain our services with the level of reduction infunding. The head of the fbi has defended its work after a classified memo was released accusing it of bias against President Trump and abuse of power. After getting caught in a scuffle with protesters last night, conservative mpjacob rees mogg accuses the treasury of fiddling its figures on brexit. Six migrants have been injured after a gunman opened fire from a car in the central italian city of macerata. The gunman has been arrested. The airlines regulator says its beginning a review